Sunday, October 14, 2007

NSA Spying: What Did Pelosi Know?

By Ray McGovernOctober 15, 2007

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has admitted knowing for several years about the Bush administration’s eavesdropping on Americans without a court warrant. She said she was briefed on it when she was ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. But was she told that the illegal surveillance began well before 9/11?

Referring to her briefing in an apologia-sans-apology Washington Post op-ed on Jan. 15, 2006, she wrote: “This is how I came to be informed of President Bush’s authorization for the NSA to conduct certain types of surveillance.”

5 comments:

There must be NO IMMUNITY to telecommunications companies that violated the law! They instead must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

The Foreign owned corporations which have access to or provide equipment for telephone billing records and telephone conversions need to be investigated. Do any of these records or conversions leave the Telephone Company's control? Do any of them end up in foreign countries?

The same questions need to also be asked about banking transaction made via the phone.

I heard Nancy Pelosi say in an interview on the Ed Shultz show..."if any one knew of any illegal activity, or breaking of the laws, by the Bush Administration..she wished some one would call her and tell her about it" and yet this imperial snatch Pelosi, says she has known for years...I can't describe the repulsion I feel for her, Reid, Leahy and the other "leaders" in the Democratic party.. (I have always voted straight democrat) this bunch are such weasels..I just don't know any more

Interesting article. I think there's too much conjecture to make a claim that Pelosi knew FISA was being violated. The far better aspect of this story is what the Bush administration knew, and when they knew it. Leave the finger pointing to Sheehan. My limited understanding of legal culpability--limited to Grisham movies etc.--would seem to indicate that covering up what you knew is tantamount to knowing at the time that what you were doing was illegal. In other words lying is evidence of an effort to avoid punishment. A cover up is proof of guilt after the fact, and provides evidence of complicity and a conspiracy to avoid prosecution a la the Plame outing. And in civil cases, lying spawns punitive damages as the consequence of the willful and ongoing exercise of neglect.

Ongoing violations of Constitutional law are the result of inadequate legal restraints imposed on the Executive. The lack of real political opposition has allowed our system of checks and balances to break down.

Robert, et al,I too suspect that Mr. McGovern is playing a little fast and loose with his facts; Was it not Rep. Jane Harmon that was the ranking member during this period? Like many documented conservative operatives currently engaged in damage control, he does not seem to find the time to focus on members of Congress and the Bush Junta that were actually in control at the time, and who were overtly blocking any meaningful oversight. Even some of the reporting done here on Consortiumnews fails to support his contentions. It seems to me that he is pandering to those who believe that if an impeachment bill is not forthcoming, Pelosi and the House Democrats are guilty of betrayal of the public trust. Their primary argument seems to be that if the Republicans could do it to Clinton over a sexual indescretion, then surely the Democrats should do it to Bush & Cheney for much more serious violations. So far Congress has not even been able to gather any hard evidence against any of these people, and even if they do, they do not have the votes to sustain impeachment in either House. In fact, it is questionable rather or not even a simple Congressional Resolution condemning specific acts could be passed by either House.